


Mistakes

by OreoLuvr13



Series: Family Ties Verse [11]
Category: Animal Kingdom (TV)
Genre: Attempted Sexual Assault, F/M, Family Feels, Future Fic, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, J is a bad ass, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-11 20:17:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20552093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OreoLuvr13/pseuds/OreoLuvr13
Summary: The first mistake Brian Rios made was messing with Lena Blackwell. The second was forgetting that she was a Cody in everything but blood.





	Mistakes

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little exploration into what life may be like for the Cody gang in the future. Takes place in my "Family Ties" verse.

Lena wipes away the tears and smudged mascara from her face. She looks at her handheld mirror. She looks like shit. Eyes puffy. Her lips are swollen. Shiny brown eyes staring back at her. Screaming at her ‘how can you be that stupid?’ She knows better. She’s seen the videos. Heard the lectures from teachers, her father, and her uncles. Don’t put yourself in the position where someone can take advantage. It sounds so simple.

But then Brian Rios gives her that adorable, slightly crooked smile. Looks at her with those chocolate eyes. Tells Lena how beautiful she is. And the next thing Lena knows she tells her Dad that she’s going to go to the movies with Ella and Haley. She’s not completely lying. She is seeing them tonight. It’s just not at the movies. It’s at a bonfire down at the beach. Lena takes the beer Brian hands her. And the second and the third. She may not have the Cody surname but she’s a Cody and partying is in their blood. Three beers is nothing. She lets him take her by the hand as he leads her to a deserted part of the beach. Because oh my god this is Brian Rios. The hottest kids in her class, if not the school.

But then his gentle kisses become more aggressive. Hands become rougher as they roam where they’re not supposed to.

It stopped before it got too far. She made sure of that and she only walks away with a couple of bruises and scrapes. Her pride and self-esteem didn’t fare as well. How can she be so fucking stupid! She made her way towards the road. Sent her friends a text saying that she didn’t feel well and was going to order an Uber home.

Lena comes home to an empty house. She’s relieved when she doesn’t see her father’s car in the driveway when she gets home. He’s probably doing something with Lucy. J moved out a couple of years ago when he and Tati got serious. She can take a hot shower and forget tonight ever happened.

“Lena?”

Shit. Lena turns towards her brother’s voice. “What are you doing here?”

J holds up what looks to be one of Alex’s shirts. “Laundry. It was piling up. Kids are messy and our washer broke. Baz said I can use yours until we get ours fixed.”

Baz. Not dad. J’s been in their lives for over ten years now. Lena has to think really hard to remember a time when J wasn’t around. But even after all that her crazy ass family has been though. Gunshot wounds, jail sentences, and other family emergencies, J still can’t bring himself to call their father Dad.

When J steps closer, Lena steps back. “Lee, what happened?”

Lena can’t tell him. Can’t tell him how stupid she was. Even though if anyone knew how she feels at this moment, she thinks j would. She doesn’t know a lot about her brother’s life before he moved in with Smurf all those years ago but she knows enough to know that it wasn’t pretty. She’s not stupid. The nightmares J would have when she was younger. Hell he still has them from time to time based on what she has been able to make out from the hushed conversations she’s overheard Tati and her dad having. When the bags under J’s eyes get particularly big and. She remembers all the showers j would take when she was little. Or how J would flinch away from any time of contact from her Dad. Still sees how sometimes J has to fight the urge to not flinch when one of her uncles grabs his shoulder. She still remembers how he would stand there awkwardly, clam up when Lena would hug him when they were younger. Aversion to touch. It’s a classic behavior seen in rape survivors. She read about it when she was on a Wikipedia binge after seeing a movie where the protagonist was assaulted.

It’s just something they don’t talk about. Just like her mother’s disappearance. Or when Uncle Deran disappears for weeks or months at a time. Or Tati getting Uncle Pope’s meds from the clinic she works at and mixing them into his bowl of goulash.

Yes, Lena doesn’t know everything. But she knows what she sees and how to research on line. She’s pretty sure that someone hurt J, like how Brian tried to hurt her tonight.

“Are you okay?” J asks.

Yes. No. Lena shrugs.

“Do you need me to take you to a doctor?”

Lena shakes her head, unclenching and fisting her bruised hand. “He didn’t do that. Didn’t get that far.”

Satisfied that Lena doesn’t need to go to the ER, he moves on to the next important point. “What’s his name?”

Just as she knows something seriously fucked up happened to J when he was kid, she also knows that she shouldn’t give him Brian’s name. She knows what her family does. How they make their money. And she knows that if she tells J who hurt her tonight, Brian would be dead before morning. As much as she wants to hurt Brian. Make him hurt just s little, make him feel the pit in his gut that she’s feeling at this moment, she can’t do that. Or more importantly she can’t have one of her family members go to jail because she was so damn stupid.

“Lena, tell me. You know I’m gonna find out eventually.” And she knows he’s right. J won’t give up until he finds the name of the guy who attacked his sister. He’ll get her uncles in on it and every boy in the freshman class will be running scared. Dad says J is the smartest and most ruthless out of all the Cody’s. The way he takes everything in. Thinks things out. And then strikes without mercy.

J might be the smartest Cody, but Lena thinks Alex, J and Tati’s 18 month old son, is going to be a force to be reckoned with as he gets older. The kid was walking by nine months and at a year and a half he already has an impressive vocabulary. Much to her delight Lee is one of his favorite words. With his brains, cherubic face, and crazy head of curls he has everyone wrapped around his finger. Then again, she’s probably a little biased since he is her nephew.

“Who was it?” J asks again. Quietly. The thing about J is he doesn’t need to yell to get what he wants. “You know I’m going to find out anyways.”

“Brian Rios,’ Lena finally answers. “Boy in my class.”

J nods. Doesn’t say anything else. Doesn’t have to. She can see the wheels turning

“Please don’t do anything stupid. I can’t lose you. It was bad enough those two years Dad was locked up. I can’t do that again,” Lena says tearfully.

“I won’t…” Lena cuts off her brother when she pulls him into a bone crushing hug.

As fucked up as it is, J’s been one of the constants in her life. The brother she didn’t know about until she was four. They had different mothers and their childhoods were so different. But it’s true. For as long as she can remember, J has always been there when she needed him. More than anyone else. Even her dad.

She loves her dad but he’s not always there for her. Whether it’s on his own free will or not. She knows her dad had no control when he got sent to Folsom. She still finds it Ironic it was a fight at Uncle Deran’s bar after he retired that got him sent off to prison for two years when she was nine. Not any of the crazy shit he pulled with her uncles and J before he got shot.

But there’s also been times when he willingly chose to be away from her. Right after her mom disappeared, it was Grandma Smurf and J who were the stable figures in her life. Taking and picking her up from school. Taking her to birthday parties, soccer, and dance. Not too mention if it wasn’t for J she probably wouldn’t even be here now. She was so young when she was sick but she still remembers the bone deep, unrelenting fatigue

J’s always been there. Through it all. Smurf dying. When her dad would disappear to Mexico for days at a time to see Lucy. When her father was doing time, it was J who went to court to be appointed her legal guardian. And he stepped up to the plate again a little more than a year ago when she stayed with him and Tati for three months when her dad had to lay low for a bit. The last thing he probably wanted to do was deal with a pissed off, moody teenager when he had a newborn at home. But J did. Did it without complaining.

J puts his head on top of hers and hugs her tight. It feels nice. This is what she needs right now.

“When the dryer’s done, we’ll leave. You can spend the night at my place. You shouldn’t be alone tonight,” J says quietly.

“Okay,” Lena nods into her brother’s shoulder. Not quite ready to leave his embrace yet.

XXXXX  
Lena wakes up to the sounds of cartoons and the smell of waffles. She rolls over and lets the sun from the open window warm her face. She lets out a loud yawn. Despite collapsing into bed after her shower the night before, she still feels exhausted. The sounds of the waves outside her bedroom window soothes her tired body. She loves her room at her house. But her room at J and Tati’s is also awesome. It’s the farthest from the living room so it’s probably the quietest room in the house. Big windows letting in the ocean breeze and the adjoining bathroom is also a bonus.

“Lee Lee!” and her bedroom door flies open, followed by Tati screaming the toddler’s name. That pushes away any thoughts of rolling over and going back to sleep.

“Come here, monster.” Lena says sitting up, smiling. “You causing trouble?”

Alex runs over to her bed and Lena pulls him into her bed. He snuggles into her side. “Wanna play, Lee Lee?”

“Of course, bud.” Lena says with a smile. “We can swim. Maybe go see the birds.”

“Birdies!” Alex yells excitedly.

“You ready for breakfast? I think your Daddy made waffles,” Lena says.

Alex shakes his head. “Daddy not here.”

“He’s not?” Lena asks standing up, letting Alex climb on her back.

She can feel Alex shake his head against her back. Great. She has a suspicion J’s disappearing act means nothing good.

“Morning,” Tati greets with a smile when Lena and Alex walk into the kitchen. Tati’s watching Lena as she walks across the kitchen. Tati and Alex were both sleeping last night so this is the first time that Tati has seen Lena since what happened with Brian. Lena instantly feels self conscious and puts her head down.

“I’m sorry that he woke you. He was all excited when he saw your door was closed this morning. We tried to keep him occupied to let you sleep, but he made a break for it when I went to the bathroom,” Tati apologizes.

“It’s fine,” Lena says taking a seat at the kitchen island. Making room for Alex to sit on her lap. “Where’s J?”

Tati gives her a look over her coffee cup. She knows that look well. It’s one she sees when they’re talking (or not talking) about the family business in front of Alex. “I think you know where he is.”

Lena can tell that Tati wants to touch her. Hug her. Give her some kind of comfort. That’s just who Tati is. When Tati first entered J’s life five years ago, Lena didn’t know how to take her. She seemed too nice. Too caring to be part of the Cody family. Tati’s older brother, Sasha, used to do stupid shit with her Uncle Deran when they were younger. But she didn’t have much to do with him as she got older. When he was doing petty crime and getting locked up, she went to college and went on to become a nurse. Tati and Sasha’s paths didn’t cross again until some job that Sasha, J, and her uncles Deran and Craig went south. Her Uncle Deran ended up with a nasty knife wound. With the ER not an option and time critical, they showed up at a pissed off Tati’s door step with an unconscious Deran. Deran made it through the night and that was the beginning of J and Tati’s relationship.

Tati has a heart of gold but she also can have a temper when provoked. Lena’s seen it.. Mostly when Sasha is around but also when Tati thinks J and her uncles are about to do something stupid.

“You okay, hun? Your brother told me what happened.”

Lena nods. “I’m okay. Feel stupid.”

“Don’t say that. You did nothing wrong. I see your hand and your cheek. You fought and got outta there. You need ice for your hand.” Tati says looking at Lena’s bruised knuckles, walking over to the freezer to get an icepack.

“Boo boo?” Alex says carefully touching his aunt’s bruised knuckles. “Mama kiss and make it better?”

Tati shakes her head and placing the icepack on Lena’s hand. “No baby, not this time. This time Daddy is going to make it better.”

**XXXXX**

J sees the little punk now coming up on side of him. He lets him pass before he starts jogging. Soon they’re almost running side by side. Kid has his ear buds in. Doesn’t even hear J coming. J takes one last look around before he crashes into Brian’s side sending him sprawling to the ground. J pushes Brian on to his back and straddles the teenager’s waist.

“What the fuck man?!” Brian yells taking out his ear bud. “I’m gonna fuck you up. You don’t know who you’re fucking with.”

J takes his gun out of the back of his shorts and places it in the middle of Brian’s forehead. “I don’t think you know who you’re fucking with.”

Then recognition clicks in the kid’s eyes. He recognizes J. Knows he’s a Cody. Good. He’s scared. “Huh? What are you talking about?” Brian’s voice cracks raising his arms up in surrender. . “I didn’t do anything.”

“You didn’t do anything to Lena Blackwell?” J slaps Brian’s cheek with his free hand coming close to hitting the bruise that’s already on his cheek. The bruise is not that big but it’s definitely noticeable on the teenager’s tan face. Must have pissed someone off. “I don’t like liars, Brian.”

J cocks the gun. “I already told you I don’t like lairs. So stop fucking lying.” The unmistakable smell of urine fills J’s nostrils. Fucking pussy. He wrinkles his nose up at the smell. “You’re calling my sister a liar?”

“Your sister?” Asshole asks. “But…but. You’re a Cody and she’s a Blackwell.” Brian pleads as he tries to understand the familial connections.

“Half sister. Still my sister. Doesn’t matter anyway. You don’t push yourself on a girl whether she’s a Cody or not. If I find out you so much as touch a girl without her say so, I’m gonna track you down and make sure you don’t touch anyone again. Got it?”

Brian nods his head. “Got it.”

“Good and one last thing. Did my sister give you that?” J asks touching the bruise with his gun. Putting two and two together. The way Lena was clutching her hand last night and the bruise on Brian’s cheek.

Shit head nods.

Good for Lena. Pride fills J. He pulls back his gun away from Brian and puts it away. “One more thing.”

“What?” a relieved Brian says.

J punches him squarely in the nose. He gets off the teenager and runs back to where he parked his truck. He can’t help it if he’s smiling the whole way back.


End file.
